We had literally hours to kill before our load in at The Riot Room in Kansas City. The three of us went to The Broadway Café a short block away from the venue and chilled out on cold coffee products, as the Kansas City heat/humidity was a wee bit brutal. There’s something interesting about KC I kind of dig. I’ve only been here once before and that was back in 2004. The layout is topsy turvy but maybe it’s just me.
One thing that creeps me out about KC is that “First 48” Episode that was filmed in KC about the serial killer Terry Blair. He basically spent 25 years in prison for another murder in the 80s and when he got out he went on a spree. His victims? All prostitutes. Truly creepy as he would call 911 dispatch and tell them where they could find the bodies. They finally caught up to him by tracking the pre-pay cell phone to a tower near a train track. In the messages he would leave 911 you could hear a train go by. Last night as we checked into our hotel I kept hearing those train sounds and freaked me out a bit.
To calm myself I listened to the UP soundtrack and watched The Office on netflix. The show? Oh yeah, right. Great sounding venue with tons of bigger national acts coming through. Our show was pretty low key as it was a Tuesday night but the 15-20 people who watched us were pretty into the set. Got to do a couple of extra tunes since we had extra time. It was the first set I felt really good about so far. Outside of me jamming the hell out of my left middle finger during a cymbal choke…things went just fine. The staff was totally nice and the soundgal did a great job mixing us. She complimented me on how I “dial in” my toms. That’s so funny to me because I am maybe the worst guy to talk to when talking about tuning drums.
Plenty of folks offered to let us stay with them. One guy had 3 cats and 2 dogs which I just can't do anymore. While I am all for the punk rock part of sleeping on floors….my body just can’t handle that many cats (big time dog lover). Holly and Tim were more than accommodating and found a hotel just outside of KC for a reasonable price. I think it was Dave from The Blind Shake I was talking to about this…or maybe it was Jeff Brown... but hotels on tour are clearly the jam. Time to put the youth punk days behind us of sleeping on floors and stay in motel/hotels. Although we can’t do this every night it is nice that we have that option now. Kind of a trip in this age with iPhones (Holly has one) we can just priceline hotels and use my AAA card for discounts.
One odd thing for me on this trip has been one song stuck in my head. It’s “Hero of The Day”, by Metallica. Probably one of their slower and maybe their poppiest song. The song just intrigues me for some reason. I spent last night also watching the music video and watching other videos that director did. Example: the video for “All These Things That I’ve Done”, by The Killers. Although I don’t love The Killers the video is kind of cool. We’re in the van now driving to Wichita and I’m hoping to run into some folks I met back in the day. Always kind of a sneaky cool town to play in if you’re on tour. Had some great luck there in 2004-2005 with my old bands. Going to hit up this “Donut Whole” when we get there.
Enough for today…see you tomorrow.
p.s. Waiting oh so patiently by the phone for the arrival of my older brother's kid! C'mon team!
No comments:
Post a Comment